Galloway Suspended By Labour Leadership
IN A vengeful act, the Labour Party has suspended from membership MP George Galloway pending “internal party investigations”. The campaigning MP (echoing the massive anti-war movement around the world) had rounded on Tony Blair for his sycophantic support for George Bush and the invasion and occupation of Iraq by US and British troops.
Now Blair is clearly out for revenge. This blatant political witch-hunt was preceded by The Daily Telegraph’s claim that Galloway was in the pay of Saddam Hussein. This exposŽ was based on highly dubious evidence found in a burned and looted ministry in Baghdad.
Galloway now faces a Kangaroo court in the Labour Party – which is an unashamed tool of the capitalist profit system. His future must lie outside of Labour in the struggle to build a new party of the working class, based on socialist policies.
WHILE THE US/British occupation continues to alienate large sections of the Iraqi population – recently a 14-year-old Iraqi boy was shot dead in Basra, reportedly by a British soldier – the occupation bosses are working out their proposals for ‘democracy’ in Iraq.
The US-led Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance has named Thamir Abbas Ghadban, a senior Iraqi technocrat and former official of Saddam’s Ba’athist regime to head the vital oil industry. A week or so previously the US Defense Department put Philip Carroll, (former head of Royal Dutch Shell in the US) to head up the oil reconstruction team.
What about “de-Baathification” the process of stopping senior Ba’ath party officials from taking high office? Irrelevant it seems. Philip Carroll’s main job will be advising Ghadban on how to look after the US government’s main interest in Iraq – its vast oil supplies.
SURPRISE, SURPRISE. The big oil companies have done well out of war in Iraq. At a time when a report says that company profitability is at its lowest level for a decade, Shell, BP, Exxon and Mobil have all announced record profits.
Shell’s net profits rose by 96% in the January to March period to £2.4 billion – that’s £27 million profit each day or well over £1 million every hour. The war in Iraq, civil unrest in Nigeria and the capitalist-inspired strikes in Venezuela all helped to push oil prices up higher than for 12 years.
